


call me home

by safestorms



Category: Killjoys (TV)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-10 04:43:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15942032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/safestorms/pseuds/safestorms
Summary: Dutch and Johnny have an emotional conversation about the time when Johnny was Hullen.“There’s a worse part than Hullen me hurting you?” Johnny can't imagine anything as terrible as what he'd - no, Hullen Johnny - had done to her..."Yes, You-you died, Johnny."





	call me home

**Author's Note:**

> This is a missing scene that takes place during 4x06 after Dutch and Johnny retrieve Dutch's memory from Utopia but before Dutch and D'avin have their conversation about Dutch's abuse and Jaq. I wasn't really satisfied with Dutch and Johnny's reunion in 4x04 so this is my version of a reunion scene that should have been. Spoilers up to and including 4x08.

The image of Dutch’s face when he’d (no, _Hullen Johnny_ ) had said to her, “if you were my real friend, you never would have left,” is stuck in Johnny’s head. No matter how much he tosses and turns, he can’t fall asleep because when he closes his eyes, all he sees is the wounded look on Dutch's face like he’d pierced her with his words.

Lucy is used to his sleepless nights by now so he isn’t surprised to hear her ask, “would you like me to read you a bedtime story, Johnny?”

“It’s okay, Luce. Not this time.” His head spinning, he gets out of bed. Since he’s still awake, he might as well look at Dutch’s memory again, see if there’s anything he can fix (prove his usefulness to her, to the team; his atonement for the wounds he’d inflicted while Hullen).

He’s startled to find Dutch already sitting in the room, half-hidden under a blanket, staring off into space. “Johnny,” she says, head turning even before he’s entered the room; a leftover habit, a memento of her former days of assassin training, courtesy of one evil asshole, Khylen.

“Can’t sleep?” he asks, crossing over to sit besides her.

Dutch shakes her head. He likes when she’s like this; the version of her that only he gets to see this late at night; a softer side of Dutch.

“Want to talk about it?” he offers.

Dutch sighs and she does that shifty thing that’s a sign of her avoiding the question.“It’s good to have you here, Johnny.”

He goes along with the subject change because it’s what she needs right now. “Who else would listen to me reading Captain Apex out loud? Did you know that Delle Seyah was reading my comics? I’m locking them up from now on. _But_ you’re allowed the secret password.”

Dutch rolls her eyes fondly at him. “No,” she says affectionately. “You know what I mean, John.”

“Do I?”

“Wait, so what’s the secret password? Let me guess. Something ridiculous, I bet.”

“Me? Ridiculous?" he says in mock horror. "I’m the master of secret codes. After all I used to be a spectacular thief. _I_ hacked into Lucy.”

At least that gets a slight smile out of her. He hates to see that brooding expression on her face which means she’s dwelling on negative things (about herself) that she really shouldn't be thinking. “ _Badly_ , may I add,” she says. “That’s how I found you, remember? Then you ran away with me and stopped your thieving ways.”

“Hey, you only found me because of the loud music I was playing.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Dutch says with another fond roll of her eyes but her mouth stays curved into a smile and Johnny feels victorious; his heart lit up by it from within. It’s funny how even after all this time, she still gets to him like this. How he’d still do anything to make her smile.

“And now, I’m the mastermind who hacks things and does tech stuff when Zeph isn’t around so that you and D’av can go fight the bad guys. I mean, isn’t that why you keep me around?”

“Wait,” Dutch frowns. “You know that isn’t why, right? We- _I_ need you, John.”

His heart clenches at these words but no, he doesn’t deserve them. “I just, if you need a break considering the things Hullen me said, I’d understand.”

The frown on Dutch’s face deepens. “I told you that wasn’t you, that I’m completely over that. Besides that wasn’t even the worst part.”

“There’s a worse part than Hullen me hurting you?” Johnny can’t imagine anything as terrible as what he’d - no, Hullen Johnny - had done to her. After all, he knows better than anyone how hard-won safety and trust are for Dutch. _There’s a monster inside me, Johnny and you’re the only one who stops it from coming out_ , she’d once told him. What must it have been like for her to see him become the monster instead? Why would she _not_ want to leave him, after that? Maybe this, this, is what is finally going to push her over the edge; realize he’s not worth staying for, just like everyone else.

Her face twists and in the dim light, takes on a haunted look. In all their years together, Johnny has never seen her look like this and it chills him to the bone. Not even, when Khylen’d caught up to them the first time and she’d looked like she’d seen a ghost. Over the years, he’s come to be able to read her in a way he can’t with books; her body language as familiar to him as code. But the next words out of her mouth still manage to catch him off guard. “Yes. You-you _died_ , Johnny.”

“Hey, last time I checked, I have a pulse,” he protests. “Though I _would_ make one really attractive zombie. Or vampire.” He cracks a grin to reassure her that he’s _fine_. That’s who he is after all, Johnny Jaqobis, Fixer of things, because he doesn’t know how to stop. How to not. He can fix this. He can wipe that frown off Dutch’s face.

But the corners of Dutch’s mouth refuse to turn up. “Seeing you lying there, even if it was just for a few seconds…I thought I’d lost you.”

“Hey,” he murmurs, scooting closer to her. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere and I’m not planning to. I left but I _came back_.”

Dutch stares back at him, looking suddenly strangely fragile.

“Would it help if we have a funeral for me? I've always wanted to write myself a kickass eulogy.”

There are tears in Dutch's eyes now but she bursts out into a watery half-smile, half-laugh, despite herself. Mission accomplished, Johnny Jaqobis and yes, he does sometimes refer to himself in the third person.

“Come on,” he says, reaching for a bottle of Hokk and a glass. “A toast to dear old dead me.”

“Johnny, what the hells! I can’t believe you’re joking about this.”

“What, too soon? _And_ lets not forget Hullen me, long shall he stay dead. May he Rot In Hell.”

“ _Johnny_ ,” Dutch says again but this time, with such fondness and affection that Johnny’s heart feels like it’s about to burst out of his chest. He thinks about all the different ways she’s said his name over the years. The many different inflections that she’s managed to get out of it, all with different meanings. His name has never sounded sweeter coming from her mouth. It feels like home. Like she’s calling him home.

“Hey, did I tell you about how I kept hallucinating you when I was Hullen?”

Dutch winces, frowns. “I told you, I’m over that. I've moved on. That wasn’t you.”

Usually Johnny would stop right there, but he figures that this is something important, something that she has to know. “You were the last piece of me, of my humanity that was holding on.   Pulling me back from becoming fully Hullen. You were the voice of good inside me that was calling me home.”

A real smile edges out then, like dawn breaking over her face. “Yeah?”

He reaches over to take her hand in his, presses her fingers to the vein on his wrist, where his pulse throbs, pumping blood through his body steady and true. “Remember how you once said that I'm your gravity? See? I’m right here.” He takes her other hand and brings it to his chest, where his heart is. “And so are you.”

Dutch is blinking tears out of her eyes now and all she can do is smile at him, warm and fond.

“What you’re feeling right now, Dutch...let yourself hurt. It’s okay to grieve, even if I was gone for just a second. You can be mad at me and hate me for what Hullen me said to you. Isn’t that what makes us different from them? Our emotions are what makes us human.” 

She does the thing with her face that she only does around him where her eyes go all soft; her layers of defence melting. This is Dutch baring herself; holding herself wide open. Letting him see her. In Dutch language, that means _I feel safe with you_ . _I trust you_. He doesn’t know what he’s done to earn this but it makes him feel like he’s flying, brimming over with incandescent joy.

“There’s nothing you can do that will make me hate you, Johnny.”

He frowns at her. “I’m-”

She’s looking at him, determined and earnest, like he’s something precious, someone worthy of protection. Growing up, there'd been no one who'd done that for him except D'av but then he'd left. Johnny Jaqobis knows all about sacrifice. Putting other people before himself is part of his blood now; a compulsion that goes bone deep. All those years that D'av was gone, he didn't have anyone who'd have his back like he'd have theirs. Until Dutch. “If it’s forgiveness you need, then...I forgive you. I know you, Johnny. I know that you’re already torturing yourself to hells and back over this. Thinking of all the ways you’ll make sure it won’t happen again.” Bringing his hand that’s covering his heart to her lips, she says fiercely, “I can’t promise not to leave. But don’t you dare ever think that I won’t come back for you and your big stupid heart. It was your gun that you threw into the Green that called me back.  It’s how I came out of the Green right where you were.”

He looks back at her, just as sincere. "You have my word. Anytime, anywhere you are, in whatever corner of the universe. Call me home, Yalena Yardeen and I'll be there. Even if it’s from beyond the grave.”

“Tap my heart,” she says solemnly.

As a boy, he’d always wished to escape to the stars, leave his home behind, find his Velubian princess just like his hero, Captain Apex. He repeats the words after Dutch, “tap my heart,” but he says it like he means _you have my heart_ because she always has, all of it, ever since he first saw her, bloodied yet unbroken; a runaway queen on Lucy, brighter than any star. He’d known then, as soon as he’d laid eyes on her; he would follow her anywhere.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Feedback is very much appreciated ;) You can also message me at safestorms on tumblr. 
> 
> The part with Johnny and the gun is based off what Julian Doucet said to TV Goodness: “That is the gun he threw. Our image is like the sword in King Arthur and an inter-dimensional lady of the lake moment if we had all the money in the world. It is sort of that. In our minds, it was always Johnny getting proximity to the Green because his connection to Dutch is so strong. He summoned her throwing the gun in and because he’s Hullenized, there’s that connection between Aneela and Johnny (too). Aneela does things that nobody really understands and I don’t think even she understands. Because she is the mirror of Dutch and she is that memory twin, somewhere between the two of them there is that bond that draws them together.”


End file.
